Chapter 3

  "Captain. Tom was almost killed when the monster robot tried to step on him!" B'ellana was saying when she entered.

  "I know it's dangerous. The whole situation is dangerous." Janeway was better prepared for a Borg attack than this. She found the Doctor still going over each tiny crewman as if he'd find something new with his tricorder.

  "Nothing Captain. Nothing to explain this." He was completely stumped on this one.

  "It's got something to do with the ship wide holodeck. If all the men are accounted for, we'll shut the whole thing down."

  "Captain, I've barely got half of the male crew here." The Doctor reported. That was the good thing about being computer generated. He'd recognize the tiny people and their records. The ship's main computer still couldn't locate them.

  "B'ellana. See if you can recalibrate the ship's sensors to detect the tiny men ... I mean ... the men that are..." Janeway looked at the table and saw that there were quite a few men there. But not all of them. The whole thing was like a nightmare.

  Then she remembered it was Seven's nightmare. Or was it?

  She had to get the blonde Borg to reverse the madness, and she had to make sure the men were rescued before anymore cannibal Klingons in other simulations got a hold of them.

  "Captain, what about her?" The Doctor complained about the woman Chakotay had hooked up with. Janeway wasn't in any mood for distractions.

  "Just stay out of the way." She ordered the civilian fictitious woman. Chakotay was on the medical examining bed with the rest of them. But the blonde bombshell was hovering over him like an overly protective hen at all times.

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  Janeway found Seven sitting in the corner with her arms around her knees. It was the scared little Annica position she'd kept from her childhood. Janeway felt sorry for her, but angry at the same time.

  There were probably fatalities in this one, and the only Borg aboard Voyager was erroneous on more than one occasion trying to be "better" than everyone else. This was just more of her big headed mishaps that could have been avoided.

  "Seven. Can you reverse it yet?" She asked already knowing the answer.

  After a few moments of vulnerable silence she murmured, "I've failed Captain," She said bitterly and sincerely. She wasn't crying though. Seven of Nine never allowed herself to do that.

  "Everyone's got a job to do. Your job is to find out how to reverse this Seven." Janeway pressed. She crouched down to get close and personal with the blue eyed Borg. Seven was feeling alot like Annica right now. Her early human emotions were the only emotions she'd had left when they disconnected her. Now she was frail and uncertain again.

  "I can't... it was triggered by my dream, and my dream became the event. I cannot order my nanoprobes to reverse an event. It's like ordering the water back into a dam." She still wouldn't let herself cry. But she was very close. "I ... can only go back to sleep and dream them back to normal."

  "That's too dangerous. Anything might happen. You might dream that the ship is made of cotton candy or something. We'll have to get the Doctor to see if we can control your dream." They both knew that was highly unlikely, but it had to be done. "Until then, you need to help us find everyone. There's alot of my crew still missing or lost in their quarter's programs. We need to move quickly Seven."

  "I cannot." She wasn't prepared to go searching. Janeway knew it was the only way to get her to face her nightmare.

  "That's an order Seven. ON YOUR FEET AND FOLLOW ME!" She took her hand and lead her out into the corridor.

  "Computer. Report a crewman's name that is missing that no one is presently looking for..."

  "Ensign Donner." The computer reported.

  "Last known location?"

  "Quarters. Level four cabin 32."

  "Let's go." It was not a request to Seven.

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Chapter 4

  "B'ellana. Good job in getting the computer recalibrated." Captain Janeway was sitting in the ready room with a different looking view than normal. Alot of seats were empty.

  They'd found nearly everyone. One of the crew had been squished under the feet of dancing holograms.

  One had been eaten by a creatures in their program. They found the tiny comm badge with a specially calibrated tricorder.

  Only a couple were still unaccounted for. They must have been wiped out when some of the holograms were disengaged to do the "search".

  Janeway knew the stress was going through the roof on the ship. Everyone wanted answers, including herself.

  Janeway looked at Chakotay, Tuvok, Tom Paris, and Harry Kim. They were standing by her hand. Seven and B'ellana were in their chairs looking on with interest.

  "The shipwide holodeck program is scrapped until it can be perfected." Janeway announced to what was left of her high staff. Of course, it wasn't a big surprise. It had been off for a day already. The women of the crew were going nuts with new duties since the men were all but gone. Even the Doctor was now 'tiny' since his mobile emitter was shrunk as well. Janeway went over her hand held roster and decided that alot of the routine chores would have to wait while pressing matters were done by the remaining crew.

  "As a bit of irony to the subject, Seven, you're now promoted to Commander."

  "Captain?!"

  "And B'ellana. You're now Chief Engineer, AND Chief Science Officer."

  "Captain?!" the half Klingon beauty was about to fight about that promotion.

  "Don't worry. I need you two on the Bridge now. And I'm giving promotions among the rest of the crew to fill in the gaps. We need to keep the ship running until we can fix ... the other problem." She looked at the tiny men next to her hand. They were still living breathing human beings, but at their present size, they just weren't considered "warm bodies" to put at a post. They were effectively neutralized. No other attack on Voyager had immobilized so much of the crew. Ever.

  But the tiny men WERE mobile. Now that the computer recognized them, they could beam to any part of the ship they wanted, and their communicators worked as well so they could talk to their large female counterparts.

  They just couldn't DO much.

  Janeway really wished it hadn't happened, but there was a positive side.

  "And, since the size of the crew is ... I mean. Since the demands on the ship's resources is lowered, we can now put more energy into the engines and we're now traveling home faster. We can use the extra replicator energy to cut months off of our travel time. So there is some good news." She looked at the tiny men again. They were standing more or less at attention, but they were dismayed by the whole situation. She was hoping none of them would suffer a nervous breakdown or go into shock.

  She was trying to be as nice as possible.

  "As for the assignments. I'm leaving it up to the men of the ship which crewmember they'd like to be affiliated with. With each of them so incapacitated, they'll need an assigned guardian to look out for them and keep track of them. We don't want any more casualties." Janeway made sure that Seven and B'ellana were paying attention to that order. They would be the ones enforcing it for her.

  "We can be with anyone we want?" Chakotay was the first to speak up. Janeway thought it only fair because they'd been dealt such a raw hand.

  "Yes, anyone." She swelled with pride. She just KNEW he'd ask her to look over him. They'd had so many intimate encounters that it stood to reason he'd want her support in this time of need.

  "Then I'd like to have... Vereche look after me on the holodeck. She could run in the background while other people are using the holodeck for other things." He looked up hopefully.

  Janeway's mouth dropped visibly at the slap in the face. Her eyes popped further open as if she'd just been dumped right before the prom.

  "I ... uh. Request granted." Janeway said with her little hope smashed.

  It shouldn't matter. But somehow it did. She watched Tom Paris go to B'ellana's hand and ask her to take him. The ex-Marquis took him in her half Klingon hand and pressed him to her chest lovingly. It was the closest thing to a teddy bear she'd had since a child. And it was her boyfriend at the same time.

  Feeling that the session was at an end, Tuvok and Harry beamed out of the room.

  Evidently neither of them wanted the Captain to look after them either.

  The Captain had to readjust her collar for her deflating head to fit back in her uniform. She'd THOUGHT the whole crew would swoon to her. She'd have to be turning them away in droves... Or AT LEAST Chakotay...

  Janeway made sure that the announcement was to go out ship wide and that each man was to log into the computer who their guardian would be just in case any one of them might go missing. There would be someone who knew where they were.

  Janeway went to her cabin and sat thinking how painful it was that Seven's idea was flawed to begin with. She would have loved to have a beautiful paradise in her cabin at all times, but knowing that Seven might dream about alien monsters and kill everyone was a big deterrent.

  She sighed again. The computer was reporting each man's choice of woman.

  It made her a bit angry with herself. Perhaps if she'd been nice she might have gotten someone for herself. Then she mentally slapped herself. She wasn't supposed to be thinking of her cursed crewmen as property. She should just be grateful that nothing worse happened! Seven may have dreamed that they all turned into dust.

  Or that the ship was a Borg ship. That could have been disastrous.

  With a shiver she thought of all the bad things. That was the downfall to having a mind that could calculate many possibilities.

  Janeway was sharp, and the possibilities for bad things seemed more vast than good.

  She poured herself a coffee. She'd be going to bed soon and she would be wondering what the crew men would be doing at this time. Would they be sleeping in sock drawers? Would they be sleeping WITH their women?

  Exhausted, she got up to shower before she turned in. More possibilities indeed.

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